Ruairi Quinn
Ruairi Quinn (born 2 April 1946) is an Irish former Labour Party politician who served as Minister for Education and Skills from 2011 to 2014, Leader of the Labour Party from 1997 to 2002, Deputy Leader of the Labour Party from 1989 to 1997, Minister for Finance from 1994 to 1997, Minister for Enterprise and Employment from 1993 to 1994, Minister for the Public Service from 1986 to 1987, Minister for Labour from 1983 to 1986, Minister of State for Urban Affairs and Housing from 1982 to 1983. He served as a Teachta Dála (TD) for the Dublin South-East constituency from 1977 to 1981 and 1982 to 2016. He was a Senator from 1976 to 1977, after being nominated by the Taoiseach and again from 1981 to 1982 for the Industrial and Commercial Panel.[1]
Ruairi Quinn
Bertie Ahern
Charlie McCreevy
John Bruton
Garret FitzGerald
2 April 1946
Sandymount, Dublin, Ireland
3
- Lochlann Quinn (brother)
- Feargal Quinn (cousin)
- Oisín Quinn (nephew)
Early life[edit]
Quinn was born on 2 April 1946. His family were prominent republicans in County Down in the 1920s, taking an active part in the IRA during the War of Independence and on the anti-Treaty side during the Civil War. The Quinns were prosperous merchants in Newry, County Down, then moved to Dublin in the 1930s, where Quinn's father built a successful business career.
Quinn was educated at St Michael's College and Blackrock College, both in Dublin, where he was academically successful and an outstanding athlete and a member of Blackrock College's Senior Cup rugby team. From an early age, he was interested in art and won the all-Ireland Texaco Children's Art competition. This led him to study architecture at University College Dublin (UCD), in 1964 and later at the School of Ekistics in Athens.
In 1965, Quinn joined the Labour Party working for Michael O'Leary's successful campaign in Dublin North-Central. In the following years, Quinn was a leading student radical in UCD demanding reform of the university's structures and the old fashioned architectural course that then prevailed. This earned him the nickname "Ho Chi Quinn", after the Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh.[2]
He travelled in Europe and became a europhile, which was to be a defining characteristic of his political career. He qualified as an architect in 1969 and married for the first time that year before embarking on studies in Athens. He and his first wife had a son and a daughter. He married again in 1990 and has a son with his second wife, Liz Allman, an architect, whose family came from Milltown, County Kerry. He became employed as an architect with Dublin Corporation in 1971.
Early political career[edit]
In 1972, Quinn decided he would stand for the Labour Party in the next general election and hoped he would be the running mate of the sitting Labour deputy for Dublin South-East, Noël Browne. The party organisation was largely moribund since Browne's election in 1969 as Browne had been ill and little work had been done locally. When the election was called in February 1973, Quinn found he was the only Labour Party candidate as Browne refused to stand in principled opposition to the Labour Party's decision to enter into a pre-election pact with Fine Gael to form a National Coalition.[3] Quinn lost by 39 votes to Fergus O'Brien of Fine Gael in the final count. Following the 1973 election, Quinn began to rebuild the Labour Party in Dublin South-East with his mainly youthful supporters. He won a council seat on Dublin Corporation at the local elections in 1974 in the Pembroke-Rathmines local electoral area and took a leading role in the Labour Party group on the city council.[4]
Quinn was a partner in an architecture firm from 1973 to 1982. In 1976, he was nominated by the Taoiseach, Liam Cosgrave, to Seanad Éireann when Brendan Halligan won a by-election in Dublin South-West and his Senate seat became vacant.[4] He was first elected a Labour Party TD for Dublin South-East at the 1977 general election.[4] Quinn was at this time associated with environmental issues being the first professional architect and town planner ever elected to the Dáil. He served as environment spokesperson for the Labour Party and was very close to the party leader, Frank Cluskey, whom he had voted for in the leadership contest of 1977. Quinn lost his seat at the 1981 general election but was elected to the 15th Seanad on the Industrial and Commercial Panel.[4] Quinn was re-elected as TD at the February 1982 general election and would continue to retain his seat at each election until his retirement in 2016.[5]
On 10 March 1991, Quinn was observed by Gardaí driving erratically in the Clontarf area. At Clontarf Garda Station, Quinn provided a urine sample, which showed him to have an 202 mg of alcohol for 100 ml of urine. He was banned from driving for a year and fined £250.[6]
Early ministerial career[edit]
In 1982, he became Minister of State at the Department of the Environment. Between 1983 and 1987, he served as Minister for Labour. From 1986 to 1987, he was appointed Minister for the Public Service, held in addition to the Labour portfolio. He resigned as a minister when Labour left the government in January 1987. In 1989, he became deputy leader of the Labour Party. He was director of elections for Mary Robinson's successful presidential election campaign in 1990.
Minister for Education: 2011–2014[edit]
On 9 March 2011, Quinn was appointed as Minister for Education and Skills in the Fine Gael–Labour coalition government.[8] In May 2011, he confirmed a U-turn on a pre-election pledge that he would reverse a proposed increase in third-level student registration fees, instead providing for a €500 increase in the fee payable by students.[9] In July 2011, Quinn had again refused to rule out the return of college fees as he acknowledged the funding crisis in the higher education sector. The Minister told a meeting of the Higher Education Authority (HEA) the funding crisis in higher education will “not go away” for many years to come. Asked if new charges were planned he said: “I honestly can't say. We are looking for efficiencies in the system at third level. ... I have said to Brendan Howlin that I will deliver.”[10]
In October 2012, Quinn announced the phasing out of the current Junior Certificate programme over the next eight years, to be replaced by a school-based model of continuous assessment.[11] He described his plan as "the most radical shake-up of the junior cycle programme since the ending of the Inter Cert in 1991",[12] and claimed the scrapping of the Junior Certificate exams would help the “bottom half” of students.[13] This reform was never implemented.
On 12 October 2012, Quinn, speaking to an audience at an anniversary celebration for St Kilian's German School, said the "demons of nationalism" and "chauvinism" embedded in our cultures would only stay under control if there was a deeper European culture. He went on to say "will only stay in the place where they belong if we have more Europe, if we have a deeper Europe, if we have a wider Europe".[14]
On 29 January 2013, Quinn launched Ireland's first national plan to tackle bullying in schools including cyberbullying. The Action Plan on Bullying set out 12 clear actions on how to prevent and tackle bullying.
In February 2013, Quinn published legislation to replace the largely discredited state training and employment agency, FÁS, with a new statutory body named SOLAS.
On 2 July 2014, Ruairi Quinn announced his decision to resign as Minister for Education and Skills, which became effective in the cabinet reshuffle on 11 July. He also said that he would not be seeking re-election to the Dáil after the 2016 Irish general election.[15][16]
Post-political activities[edit]
Since 2016 Quinn has sat on various boards, including as chairperson of the Irish Architectural Archive (2020–2023), and as a director of the Institute of International and European Affairs.[17][18]